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A report released by the Labor Department on Thursday showed first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits declined by much more than anticipated in the week ended August 8th.
The Labor Department said initial jobless claims tumbled to 963,000, a decrease of 228,000 from the previous week's revised level of 1.191 million.
Economists had expected jobless claims to slide to 1.120 million from the 1.186 million originally reported for the previous week.
With the much bigger than expected decrease, jobless claims dropped below 1 million for the first time since the week ended March 14th.
